Ford presidency had a major impact on Hispanics

By JOSE DE LA ISLA
Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Few of us, even Washington's political junkies, know about Gerald R. Ford's role in bringing the Hispanic constituency into play in national politics.

Two important decisions made during his presidency are rarely brought up from the database of lingering memories that historians draw upon. But they had a special bearing on shaping our current national politics.

Ford, this nation's 38th president, passed away in Rancho Mirage, Calif., the day after Christmas. He was 93.

He became vice-president to President Richard Nixon following Spiro Agnew's resignation in October of 1973. Ten months later, after the Watergate hearings and facing impeachment, Nixon resigned, making Ford the only person ever to become vice-president and president without benefit of election to the positions.

In office barely a month, the new president invited Congress's Hispanic members to visit him for a chat. The agenda included the economy as well as funding for bilingual education and worker training.

All the congressional members except one were Democrats: Herman Badillo of New York, Eligio (Kika) de la Garza and Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas, Edward Roybal of California, and Senator Joseph Montoya of New Mexico. The lone Republican was New Mexico's Manuel Lujan Jr., who later became Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan.

Some community leaders were calling for abolishing the Committee on Opportunities for Spanish Speaking People. The policymaking group was found by the Watergate hearings to have played along with Nixon operatives trying to influence the Hispanic vote in the 1972 election.

Instead, the delegation meeting with Ford seemed to favor placement of a high-level advocate in the White House. Coincidentally, Ford was considering appointing Fernando E.C. de Baca as White House special assistant. He had spearheaded the Sixteen Point Program, one of Nixon's few successful initiatives to place high-level Hispanic officials in the administration. However, once in the Ford White House, de Baca had to finesse a delicate matter.

The Voting Rights Act was due for reauthorization. It was originally passed in 1965 and renewed in 1970, mainly to cover the South, where black elected representation had grown dramatically. Most civil rights leaders wanted the law reauthorized without changes. But Hispanic leaders were pressing for the law to include language minorities and to bring other states into the federal government's oversight.

A similar effort to expand the bill had lost in 1970 when Gerald Ford, as House minority leader, worked with Nixon to defeat the measure.

In 1975, the House passed the reform bill's Senate version, 346 to 56. To his credit, Ford signed it. The new law was a major national benchmark. But a critical mistake was not championing it through Congress. Eventually Republicans solidified their core middle-class Hispanic constituency to give us the tug and pull for that portion of the vote we have today. A forceful statement from the White House about ending Hispanic voter discrimination was attributed to Fernando de Baca, and not the president.

Ford, during his18-month presidency, appointed 61 high-level government officials. He exceeded what Nixon had done in six years.

Ford also named Edward Aguirre as commissioner of Education. The post was the equivalent of a Cabinet position, although the Department of Education had not yet been established. Aguirre represented the highest-level Latino appointment by any U.S. president up to that time.

Aguirre recalls one meeting in particular in the Oval Office when President Ford was reviewing the education budget. The book Ford had before him contained countless details. Aguirre remembers Ford specifically asking about one inner-city program axed by lower-level officials.

Ford was especially knowledgeable about budgets. He asked Aguirre one direct question, "What difference will this make for kids?" Then he turned to the budget director and said, "Put it in."

"To me that is the mark of the man," Aguirre told me.

(Jose de la Isla is author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power" (Archer Books, 2003). He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail: joseisla3(at)yahoo.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com.)